Test captain Ben Stokes turned to his side’s replacement spinner on day two against New Zealand – with mixed results
By three o’clock in the afternoon the match was just starting to drag. The first day and a half of this Test unspooled at such a frantic pace that the burgeoning stand between Tom Blundell and Daryl Mitchell seemed to make everyone feel a little restless and uncomfortable, as if Lord’s was caught in an awkward silence that had stretched on too long.
They’d only been going an hour, routine business in any other Test, but this one’s run in fast forward. The way they’ve been going at about it in this match makes Test cricket feel like trying to ride a Victorian bicycle, essentially familiar, and yet somehow all very different to how we do it now.
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